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December 13, 2017

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Access to Congress

Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Nevertheless, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S.
Senate have enacted their own rules and have allowed substantial public
access to their proceedings and records. You can obtain access to
congressional debates and other proceedings, but you need to obtain
gallery passes from the office of your Senator or Representative. In
addition, networks like C-Span televise and archive a large percentage
of floor debates. You also may observe congressional committee
meetings, notice of which is posted online. The congressional press
galleries offer increased access and support services to members of the
press who obtain the proper credentials, but the galleries place
limitations on who can qualify for credentials. Finally, the U.S.
government's own online portals provide congressional information and
documents, and private organizations have developed fantastic tools for
finding and organizing this information. We provide links to many of
these resources below.

Physical Access to the Main Galleries

The galleries of the House and the Senate are open to the public whenever either body is in session, but gallery passes
are required. You can obtain gallery passes from the office of your
Senator or Representative (usually, any member can provide passes to
both houses). There are three Senate office buildings and three House
office buildings; to find the Senators and Representatives for your
state, visit the Senate directory or the House directory.

Under limited circumstances, the galleries may be closed to the
public. When the Senate discusses any business which, in the opinion of
a Senator, require secrecy, the Presiding Officer must clear the
galleries and keep the doors closed for the duration of the discussion.
See Senate Rule XXI.
The House galleries may be closed when the Speaker, a member, a
delegate, or a resident commissioner indicates that he or she will
deliver communications that ought to be kept secret, or when the
President sends confidential communications to the House. See House Rule XVII, para. 9 (scroll down).

Access to Committee Meetings

Public access to congressional committees is an important part of
government transparency. Committee meetings and hearings generally are
open to the public, but members of a committee may vote to close a
hearing or meeting under limited circumstances. See Senate Rule XXVI(5)(b) and House Rule XI(g)(1)(2).

Senate Committees

As a general rule, Senate committee meetings are open to the
public. Senate committees may close a meeting if the matter to be
discussed would:

disclose matters necessary to be kept secret in the interests
of national defense or the confidential conduct of the foreign
relations of the United States;

tend to charge an individual with crime or misconduct, to
disgrace or injure the professional standing of an individual, or
otherwise to expose an individual to public contempt, or will represent
a clearly unwarranted invasion of the privacy of an individual;

disclose the identity of any informer or law enforcement
agent or will disclose any information relating to the investigation or
prosecution of a criminal offense that is required to be kept secret in
the interests of effective law enforcement;

disclose information relating to the trade secrets of financial or commercial information under certain circumstances;

divulge matters required to be kept confidential under other provisions of law or government regulations.

Senate committees must give public notice of their hearings at least
one week in advance. The notice must give the date, place, and subject
matter of the hearing. See Senate Rule XXVI(4)(a).
The Senate Rules do not specify where committees must post this notice,
but as a matter of practice they will do so on their websites and in the Congressional Record. For links to Senate committee websites, see the Senate Committee Portal.

Finally, Senate committees and subcommittees must make publicly
available through the Internet a video recording, audio recording, or
transcript of any meeting not later than twenty-one business days after
the meeting occurs. See Senate Rule XXVI(5)(e)(2)(A).

House Committees

As a general rule, House committee hearings and meetings are
open to the public. House committees may vote to close a meeting or
hearing if disclosure of matters to be considered would endanger
national security, would compromise sensitive law enforcement
information, would tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person,
or otherwise would violate a law or rule of the House. They must
announce the date, place, and subject matter of hearings to the public
at least a week in advance in the Daily Digest and on their websites. For links to House committee websites, see the House Committee Portal.

Additional Resources for Committees

The Congressional Directory
provides a listing of all currently functioning committees in both the
House and Senate. Clicking on each committee will bring you to links to
the committee's homepage, any subcommittees, and a schedule of upcoming
meetings. Transcripts of hearings are usually available from the
committees' websites.

Capitolhearings.org, a service from C-Span, provides live broadcasts of congressional committee hearings.

Govtrack.us tracks a wide variety of information related to the activities of congressional committees.

Media Coverage

Members of the media in possession of proper press credentials are
allowed access to the press galleries. Each house administers three
galleries, one for press (meaning newspapers), one for periodical
press, and one for radio and television. These galleries provide
increased access to lawmakers and their staffs, and include workspaces
and telephones for press use. Gallery staff will assist reporters and
answer phones to take messages for the press while congressional
proceedings are going on. The press is also given access to official
transcripts, notes, and logs of congressional proceedings, and when
lawmakers want to issue press releases, copies are generally handed out
to everyone in the press gallery.

Each has its own credentialing process. For example, the Senate
Press Gallery requires that the reporter reside in Washington. The
Senate Periodical Press Gallery requires that the periodical in
question provide coverage of Washington issues on a continuing basis. A
common requirement is that the reporter's organization not be engaged
in lobbying activities. The House Press and Radio-Television Galleries
advise applicants to go through their Senate counterparts for
membership. In contrast, the House Periodical Press Gallery credentials
its own members as well as its Senate counterpart, and maintains a list of recognized periodicals. See each gallery's web page for their particular applications and restrictions.

The procedures for the Senate Periodical Press Gallery are a bit
more ambiguous. It provides two similar but not identical "Rules"
pages. One instructs applicants to apply through the House Periodical
Press Gallery, and the other instructs applicants to apply through the
Senate.

The Open House Project
has an excellent entry that details the procedure bloggers and online
journalists have gone through to obtain membership in the congressional
press galleries. It also describes the battles that have been fought to
secure the right of online media to gain access to Congress, including
the story about WorldNetDaily'seventually successful fight for credentials.

Access to Congressional Documents

Because Congress is not an agency, congressional documents are not
subject to the disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA). For details on FOIA, see the Access to Records from the Federal Government section.

As a matter of practice, however, most documents generated by
Congress are publicly available. On occasion, Congress and its
committees may designate certain documents, reports, and transcripts
confidential or classified. See Goldand v. Central Intelligence Agency, 607 F.2d 339, 346 (D.C. Cir. 1978),
which affirms that "Congress has undoubted authority to keep its
records secret, authority rooted in the Constitution, longstanding
practice, and current congressional rules." For these documents, there
is no established method for gaining access to them, and one must
request declassification and release of the document from Congress
directly.

The vast majority of congressional documents are readily
available to the public online. There are a host of extremely useful
online resources for accessing transcripts of floor debates, committee
hearings, and voting records. Disclosures by members of Congress
relating to funding and expenditures, drafts of proposed legislation,
and congressional reports are also easily accessible online. Below is a
list of some of these resources:

The Library of Congress’s THOMAS
- This official legislation tracker from the U.S. Library of Congress
(LOC) features the progress of pending and completed legislation. The
LOC’s website also contains a number of other resources for
congressional information.

The Congressional Record
- The Congressional Record, published daily when Congress is in
session, is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the
United States Congress. It includes the accounts of debates, votes,
legislation, and committee meeting announcements. Records are available
from 1994 on.

Congressional Reports
- Congressional reports originate from congressional committees and
deal with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. The
database for the current Congress is updated irregularly, as electronic
versions of the documents become available. Reports are available from
the 104th Congress (1995) and on.

Congressional Hearings
- Hearings released to the GPO are searchable and browseable on GPO
Access. Reports are available from the 104th Congress (1995) and on.

U.S. House of Representatives House Members' Public Disclosures
- Members, officers, and staff of the U.S. House of Representatives are
required by certain House Rules and federal statutes to file official
documents on travel, income, gifts, etc., and to make this information
available to the public. These documents are filed with the Clerk of
the House.

Opencongress.org
- Another bill tracker that also contains biographical information on
individual Representatives and Senators and committee information. It
also features legislation-oriented blogs and news content.

The Sunlight Foundation
- A foundation founded in January 2006 with the goal of using Internet
technologies to help citizens learn more about what their elected
representatives are doing and ensure greater transparency and
accountability in government. On its website, the foundation provides a
list of "Insanely Useful Web Sites" for accessing, tracking, and organizing government information and legislative data.

We are looking for contributing authors with expertise in media law, intellectual property, First Amendment, and other related fields to join us as guest bloggers. If you are interested, please contact us for more details.

Disclaimer

Information in this guide is based on general principles of law and is intended for information purposes only; we make no claim as to the comprehensiveness or accuracy of the information. It is not offered for the purpose of providing individualized legal advice. Use of this guide does not create an attorney-client or any other relationship between the user and the Digital Media Law Project or the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

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